Andrea Dovizioso says it was “important” to seal MotoGP victory at Misano in his championship battle with Ducati teammate Jorge Lorenzo, as it is one of the Spaniard's “best tracks”.
Dovizioso stole the lead away from poleman Lorenzo early in the 27-lap San Marino Grand Prix, opening up a gap of 2.5 seconds before resisting his teammate's advances when his advantage was cut to just 1.5s.
Lorenzo's crash on the penultimate lap allowed Dovizioso to cruise to his third win of the season – equalling Lorenzo's tally – and move into second in the standings, 24 points ahead of the Spaniard, who now slips to fourth behind Yamaha's Valentino Rossi.
Dovizioso says winning at a track Lorenzo has enjoyed years of success at was “important” in his battle for runner-up spot with him in the standings, and claims it shows the progression Ducati has made since its previous Misano win in 2007.
“I think this victory means a lot for many reasons,” he said.
“First for Ducati, if the last time it happened in 2007, it means the bike wasn't good in this track. Now, today, for sure maybe it was the best.
“For me it was important to win here, because in Misano I never did anything special in this track, and it was very important to make the victory in this moment of the championship.
“With the battle I have in the championship it was important to win here because it is one of the best tracks of Jorge.”
Dovizioso was wary of Lorenzo making a “special race” while chasing the Italian, but was confident he had “margin” enough in laptime to “understand” the pace of his teammate and Honda's Marc Marquez.
“My strategy was to be in front and make my rhythm, because I knew I have a good rhythm to stay in front,” he explained.
“But Jorge sometimes make a special race, so is difficult, and also Marc was very strong. So I didn't know.
“When I was leading I was trying to play a little bit with the laptime, because I have margin to be faster and take some more risk under control to understand the [pace of the] competitor.
“You know what you can do in which way, but you can't know how will be the competitor, so you have to adapt during the race.
“It's important to have your strategy, how much to stay in front, behind, how much to save the tyre from the practice.
“But at the end, you have to make some part of the strategy during the race.”
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